migration

Photographed from an ultra-light plane last December, these whooping cranes are being taught to fly south for the winter. Almost completely wiped out by 1940, there are now 536 known captive and wild whooping cranes in North America. But those raised in captivity will not migrate to warmer climes automatically -- they have to learn the skill.

You won’t find geolocator backpacks in the North Face catalog anytime soon, but if you fly south for the winter you may notice one strapped to the back of a migrating songbird. That’s how an inventive group of researchers have been tracking the speed and location of purple martins and wood thrushes flying from Pennsylvania to South America and back. What they’ve have found is truly astonishing.

We can only assume DARPAs cyborg moths will be deployed relatively close to their targets, but we have no real word yet on their potential range. If the military does find the need to release the moths from the rear of operations under the cover of darkness, they would do well to pay attention to research coming out of the United Kingdom on how moths are able to migrate at night.